Small Business Owners Share Struggles with Mobile Payments

While small business owners may be open to embracing mobile commerce activity, some are likely putting up roadblocks that might prevent usage from their consumers.

That’s one of the findings from a new report compiled by ControlScan and TransFirst, which collected responses from more than 1,650 merchants.

Eighty-two percent of ecommerce merchants said they didn’t know whether a purchase on their website came from a mobile device or a PC. However, data from those who did know, indicated that mobile site visitors represented a significantly increasing portion of online sales.

Forty-nine percent of ecommerce merchants knew their websites were not currently optimized for mobile devices, according to the report.

An additional 17% said they didn’t know or were unsure about their site’s current status, revealing that as many as two-thirds of these merchants may be putting up roadblocks to the growing number of mobile consumers.

“The mobile consumer is knocking at the small merchant’s door,” said Craig Tieken, director of product at TransFirst, a Hauppauge, N.Y.-based provider of transaction processing services and payment enabling technologies.

Tieken added, “Business owners who aren’t already up to speed with mobile payment acceptance need to have a viable plan of action to get there.”

The research also showed that 10% of respondents to last year’s benchmark Mobile Payment Acceptance Survey said they were using a smartphone or tablet to accept face-to-face credit card payments. In less than one year’s time, that number has almost doubled to 17%.

The survey was sent to those businesses classified by credit card brands as “Level 4,” which are merchants that process fewer than 20,000 ecommerce or one million physical card transactions annually, according to ControlScan, an Atlanta-based payment and compliance service provider, and TransFirst.

The firms said these typically small to mid-sized businesses represent service areas such as retail and consumer goods, healthcare and human services, personal and professional services, and restaurant and hospitality. Three-quarters of survey respondents’ businesses had 10 or fewer employees.